Monday, December 17, 2007

Sleepy, Cleany, and not-so-Meany

Do you know what it’s like to take a nap in the afternoon of a gray Sunday?

It’s freaking GLORIOUS, is what it is. Man, I love my naps.

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This evening I’m expecting to be in the company of some old friends from New England, who might just be making the move down here to the promised land. To say I’m excited would be an understatement.

It’s not everyone that gets me to clean the baseboards, y’all.

I met C and her husband a number of years ago at the large pharmaceutical company for which I then worked. Well, OK,. I met C there, because she joined my group as a new writer. Over time I got to know her pretty darned well, and eventually was allowed to meet her husband, the effervescent P, and was invited to their home on many an occasion. They are wonderful people, and though we have not stayed in constant contact with one another over the almost three years I’ve been gone, talking with her was like falling off the proverbial log into warm water.

C is interviewing for a job down here. After a lifetime in New England she and Mr. P are ready for a change. The kids are grown, one is out of the house and one nearly so, and it’s time to think about the rest of their lives.

Plus which, the large pharmaceutical company for which we both worked is, once again, changing. Downsizing, laying off, whatever you might call it, the smell of blood is in the air and C has decided it’s time to look for greener pastures.

If I didn’t mention it before, she’s a pretty smart cookie.

So, tonight I’ll be hosting she and Mr. P. There’s homemade chili and good brown bread on the menu, the 12-pack is chilling and a large bottle of merlot has been procured, and the guest bed is airing out in preparation for clean sheets and new pillows.

And, or course, the baseboards are clean.

The things I do for friends. Oh my yes.

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I am nearly finished with Christmas shopping. 2 days is all it took. I suppose I COULD have completely finished yesterday afternoon, but I didn’t feel like it. After experiencing the absolute wreck of a store that was Kohl’s I'd really had quite enough.

Which leads me to ask this question: what IS it with people? The men’s section at Kohl’s looked like a hurricane had swept through it, and everywhere I looked there were piles of stuff draped over clothes rods, on the floor, where they didn’t belong, etc.

Why can’t people just put the shit away neatly if they don’t want it, or at least give it to an employee to put away? Why do they just throw it back in the general vicinity of the correct place or drop it on the floor or just leave it wherever? It’s disrespectful, lazy, and rude.

Perhaps as a former department store worker I get my gruntle on a little more than the ordinary bear would at this kind of stuff, but daggone it, where’s a little common courtesy? The folks who work at stores don’t make a lot of money, and they sure as HECK don’t want to be standing around refolding shit they’re folded once before, and finding where the stuff goes, and sorting through rack after rack of clothing and other goods looking for misplaced items. It’s boring, tedious, maddening work, and yet customers by the score must believe that it’s their RIGHT to make the underpaid store workers do their dirty work for them.